


A Discussion of Present, Past, and Juggling

by HathorAroha



Series: Fictober 2018 [2]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: Friendship, Post-Curse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 12:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16175366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HathorAroha/pseuds/HathorAroha
Summary: Adam, stretching himself thin from stress and doing so many things at once, has a discussion with Lumiere late at night.





	A Discussion of Present, Past, and Juggling

Adam raked his hands through his hair, the candle fluttering as he blew out a breath. The clock above him struck eleven–was it already so late at night?–and he had not even started to pierce the surface of everything he had to fix right here, right now. Everything he had to undo from before the curse, everything wrong he had to make right again. All the sky-high taxes, increasing sickness, starvation, homelessness, shelters that were not much better than haphazardly built dog kennels, the people outside his borders he had angered, the traders and merchants he had turned away and cheated out of– 

His hands were cramping already from all the writing, and his dinner sat unloved and cold at his elbow. He’d told Belle not to worry, that he was doing everything he could to make things right–including providing education to both girls and boys (he had taken great satisfaction in sacking that heinous headmaster in Villeneuve.) Everything he had done wrong, every mis-step–

A knock at the door, sharp, firm. 

“What?!” he snapped without looking up. 

The door creaked open behind him, candlelight flooding the study, angling off the bookshelf and desk. A long sigh, the sigh of someone who was at once exasperated and concerned. 

“Belle, if that’s–” 

“It’s not Belle,  _mon prince_.” 

Lumiere. 

“What do you need,” Adam asked in a taut tone, wincing as a stress headache made itself known, spreading over his head and pinching his temples. 

“We need to talk.” 

“Later–”

“ _Non_.” 

Adam heard the no-nonsense edge to Lumiere’s voice, the kind of tone he used when he was nearing his tether’s end–which wasn’t often, in fact rare enough that even in his extravagant days pre-curse, Adam sat up and paid attention. He swallowed back his protest as Lumiere grabbed a chair and scraped it over the floor, setting it down next to Adam’s at the desk. He sat back in it, legs stretched out, crossing his feet over each other. His hands sat loosely clasped on his knees. 

“Lumiere, it better be urgent.” 

“In a manner of speaking.” 

“There’s many things I have to do right now.”

“Define “how many”.” 

Adam groaned, letting his hands fall back on the desk. A few bits of paper fluttered off the desk at the motion.

“Look, you know how awful I was during the days before the Enchantress. You know how many things need to be done–I need to right everything.” 

Lumiere raised an eyebrow at him. “Define “everything”,  _mon prince_.” 

Adam inhaled deeply, trying and failing to ignore the growing pain of his headache. 

“Everything.” 

“Ah, that makes it clearer.” 

Adam fought back an urge to snap back at him, not in the mood for his side comments. 

“Everything,” Adam repeated “I need to fix everything I neglected.” 

“And all at once?” 

“There’s shelters to be fixed, homeless people to be taken care of, orphanages to be saved, education reformations–I  _still_ can’t believe that headmaster in Villeneuve, Lumiere, not allowing girls to read–and there’s all the traders I refused to trade with, not to mention building animal shelters for abandoned pets, and new hospitals for sick–” 

He stopped mid-sentence as Lumiere’s hand came up to grip his shoulder. 

“ _Adam,”_ Lumiere said, dropping his title all together, “That’s a lot to do at once.” 

“It has to–”

“Do you know how many balls I can juggle at once?” 

“What does that have to do with anything?” 

“Hear me out. How many?” 

“I don’t know. Five? Six?” 

“Six, and I drop them all. Why?” 

“Why?” 

“Why do  _you_ think, Adam?” 

Seeing Lumiere expecting a proper answer, Adam slumped back in his chair. 

“Because you’re juggling too many–”

“ _Precisely_!” Lumiere snapped his fingers, “Because it’s too many! You see yet where I’m going with this?” 

“Something to do with juggling? I don’t know what that has to do with– I can’t–”

Lumiere sat up straight, drawing his feet back until they were flat on the floor. “I’ve heard enough. This ends now.” 

Adam stared. He had never heard Lumiere sound so serious before, sound so no-nonsense. 

“Adam, I’m going to talk to you now, about this, like two adults. You hear me?” 

Adam nodded. 

“Good. Because we’ve been seeing you like this for the past few weeks now, and  _mademoiselle_  is growing more worried about you–worried enough that she confessed everything to me one evening.” 

“Why?” 

“Because she’s worried, Adam, that you’re trying to do everything and you’re stressing yourself more than you need to.” 

“I’m not–”

“Stop lying to yourself,  _mon prince_ , this is unhealthy and you know it. I admire your desire to fix everything, but you can’t juggle a thousand things at once before you drop from exhaustion. And you look half-dead from exhaustion, if I may be so blunt.” 

“Isn’t it better to do everything at once?” 

“Did you fall in love with Belle in one day? Did this castle get built in one day? No. It had to take  _time_.” 

“You fell in love with Plumette in one–”

Lumiere waved the words away. “That’s got nothing to do with this. That was an attraction at first sight, you know–love only developed when we grew to know each other on an intimate level.” He took a deep breath, a hand coming up to rest on Adam’s shoulder again. “I admire that you want to fix everything, and that is a great thing to want to do. But you know, Belle  _had_ tried urging you before to take it slowly.” 

“I’m not a patient man, you know this.” 

Lumiere chuckled lightly. “Don’t we all know this.” 

Adam managed a weak smile in response. 

“And I know you aren’t one to reach out for help, and yes, that may be partly down to the past.” 

A silence fell between them at this, both men remembering the dark days when Adam’s father had ruled over the castle. 

“I don’t blame you for never asking for help again,” Lumiere continued, “And that’s what you’ve become used to over the years.” 

Adam nodded–he couldn’t really deny this, not least of all because he knew Lumiere was right and would see through any attempt at denial. 

“I won’t pretend to say we don’t regret what we could– _should_ –have done–”

“It was Father’s job to raise me, not yours.”

“And he did a right awful job of it,  _mon prince, not_ that we would have dared tell him so, not unless we wanted to be sacked.” 

“Good thing you hadn’t.” 

“I say this for all of us, you know the worst thing?” 

Adam’s heart skipped a beat in its worry. 

“The worst thing was that we knew we couldn’t help you even when you desperately needed it, and then seeing how your father twisted you up–as Mrs Potts said–to be like him.” 

“You…never hated me?” 

“We didn’t hate  _you_ , we hated the person your father had made you become. Does that make sense?” 

“I think so.” 

“We hoped you’d reach out to us for help during the curse, and we had tried–” 

“But I was too stubborn and angry at the world.” 

“Remember that evening when we made you invite Belle to dinner?” 

“No, no, I’ve completely forgotten that hideous drama,” Adam quipped. 

“Mrs Potts was saying the other day how we had gone the wrong way about it.” 

“What, with song and dance for Belle behind my back?” Adam guessed not unkindly.

“No, not  _that_ , the way we had bullied you–her words–into doing it. Be honest, Adam, how had it made you feel then?” 

“I–I don’t–”

Lumiere held up a hand. “No, be honest, I won’t tell anyone.” 

Sensing Lumiere’s honesty, Adam took a deep breath, his mind going back to that awful evening. He and Belle could laugh at it now, in secret, like their own inside joke, but at the time he had felt it the least funny thing in the world. And he had felt like–

“A child,” Adam admitted, his voice timid, “I felt like–”

“Precisely.”

Adam sighed, fighting back a yawn. “But you were desperate then.” 

“You’re right, but we should have treated you like an equal–like an adult, not a child. Like I’m talking to you right now. You could say we were  _way_ out of practice with how to encourage you.” Lumiere smiled, a bittersweet one, “You can’t fault us for trying, Adam, can you?” 

Adam had to admit, they had tried  and the fact they had stayed with him during the curse, and that they’d clearly regretted how he had turned out before he was turned into a Beast, that he couldn’t deny. 

“You meant well, Lumiere, I…I was a Beast by then, literally and figuratively,” he couldn’t help a wry grin, “I wasn’t the  _beast_ person to be around.” 

Lumiere clutched his chest, wincing. “That pun causes my very soul to languish in agony.” 

“Oops, sorry.” 

But then Adam found himself laughing, and Lumiere soon joined in. He wasn’t quite sure why they had begun laughing, perhaps out of stress, out of relief, even both. Either way, he found himself relaxing, shoulders not so tense as before, his headache relenting a little. 

Adam swept an arm out at his desk. “You know, Lumiere, I think I’m going to leave all this for tomorrow.”

“ _All_ this?” Lumiere repeated, giving him a knowing look. 

“Alright, not  _all_ of it.” 

“Good. Take it a bit at a time, and we’re here for a reason too. And Belle would walk over hot coals to help you with anything. She’s going to be our princess soon either way.”

“We haven’t–”

“She’s going to be a princess.” Lumiere grinned. “Good thing she found this castle that day, eh?” 

Adam sighed, his heart swelling with love at the mention of Belle. 

“She came back,” he breathed, “She  _came back_.” 

“Of course she did–everyone could see you were both in love! Everyone, that is, but you two.” Lumiere clapped his hand on Adam’s back, “You know, I feel like going down to the kitchen for a wine and relaxation. You want to join?” 

Adam scooted back his chair. 

“You know what, Lumiere. I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> For @fictober18 , using the prompt: “I’ve heard enough. This ends now.”


End file.
